CHAPTER THREE—SUSPICIONS

Kawa and Mairu hadn’t been expecting Koto and Nova to bring back a prisoner, but when they pushed the cop up to the front entrance of the mall where they went down to meet them, they didn’t argue.

In a hurry, they got out of there. Where one bot was—and there had been two cop bots—more were sure to follow. Kawa was just sorry they hadn’t had time to loot the tech, because that stuff went for a high price, especially in trade for food. Which out here? It was pretty hard to come by.

She sighed heavily and glanced over the Mairu who looked at her. Mairu was even shorter than she was, and with that huge gun held in her arms alike a teddy bear or something, she was sure to be tired.

“Want me to hold Little Bullet for you?” she offered.

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

Kawa nodded. While Mairu was only twelve, she did pretty well at keeping up. And so did he brother. When he wasn’t sick. And just as she thought that, she felt a pain in her stomach that she felt when she breathed out, but not in.

“Are you okay?” asked Mairu as she glanced up at the older girl.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“It’s nothing. I know you’re worried about Karu, but I’m sure he’ll pull through. He’s strong.”

The words were a comfort, but not all of the dregs were recovering from this sickness. Some of them had died from other villages and camps. So far, none of theirs had gotten that sick yet, but Kawa was worried.

“Keep up,” Nova said, her gone held casually beside her leg as she kept a few paces back from the man called Jon Freeman.

Apparently he was some kind of cop, and Kawa told Mairu as much when she asked, but otherwise the two girls listened. They were like that, Mairu and Kawa. They listened, often didn’t speak too much. Not like Koto and Nova, who never shut up.

She sighed, listening.

“I mean,” Jon said with a chuck as he turned around and walked backwards. He even laced his fingers behind his head like he was relaxing atop some kind of cloud or something. “You gonna march me back to your base, and do what? Hold me hostage? For ransom? You said it yourself—I’m one of you now. Look!”

He showed them his wrist band and the little red light on it.

“You talk a lot,” Koto said.

Jon laughed. “Hey, I’m just trying to point out that you don’t have to treat me like some kinda prisoner, yeah?”

“For a guy who might get a bullet,” Nova said, “you sure are bright.”

“Oh come on,” he laughed. “You kids aren’t going to do anything to me.”

“Do you think this is good?” Koto asked as he turned to Nova for an answer.

She glanced about.

They all did.

The desert hills were pretty barren, except for a whole lot of rocks and sand and little cliffs. There were some tires, and even the cement was mostly covered by sand and dried grass.

Behind, the lights of the outer city lit the horizon and further into the green zone the neon signs of the corporate commercialism could be seen. Giant floodlights and holograms lit the night sky and little lights flashed and blinked and popped from the city air traffic.

All of that buzz so far off made the hills seem serenely peaceful—and they were, and this thought was not shared by just Jon, but by Koto and Nova as well.

“Yeah,” Nova said with a nod.

They were safe from the cops out here. Even the bots wouldn’t be sent this far, otherwise they might as well send them unarmored and unarmed so the scavengers and the dregs could have them—and that was if some resistance group didn’t manage to capture them first.

Jon laughed. “What’s this about?”

“Listen,” Nova said. “You’re a cop”—she said the words while gesturing with her pistol for emphasis—

“Whoa!” Jon said, moving his head to the side. “That’s a great way to shoot a guy.”

“We wouldn’t mind if your bones were laid out here to rest tonight,” Nova continued.

“But we don’t care about that,” Koto added. “We just want to know what you said about that water being poisoned.”

“What?” he asked. “Why?”

With these words, Kawa glanced at Mairu and they came closer to listen as the sand beneath their boots and sneakers gritted with their steps. Did this man know something about all that?

“Just tell us,” Nova said impatiently.

Scratching the back of his neck, Jon glanced about uncertainly, then he said, “It was a lead from a terrorist.”

“A terrorist?” asked Mairu.

“Yeah,” Jon said. “You know, a bad guy that wants to do bad things to scare a lot of people.”

“We know what terrorists are,” Koto said.

“Yeah… yeah of course you do. Sorry. You just got me a bit wound up is all, what with the guns and the chainless frog marching back to the gods know where.” He chuckled.

There was a pause and Nova sighed. Then she holstered her pistol and spread her arms. “Is that better?” she asked Sardonically.

“Yeah,” Jon said with a confident nod. “A little bit. So you want to know what I was doing out here when those cop bots attacked me? I barely know. Listen, I was onto a lead I found by a guy—his name’s not important. Let’s just say the guy was going to blow up a huge factory.” He shrugged. “Now, personally, I wouldn’t have been too put out had he succeeded, but we can’t operate like that, right?”

“Get to the point,” said Koto.

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In the distance above the hills the call of a wild animal came back to them, and even though most of the grass was dry and dead, there were a few crickets chirping under a lit billboard with advertisements of a cyberspace future, as if anyone actually needed such a thing.

“Right,” said Jon, then he pulled the hems of his jacket in. “I stumbled over a pretty big thing. Listen, they’re dumping some pretty toxic stuff into the river. And I think they’re doing it intentionally to poison everybody out here.”

“Who?” asked Kawa as she took a step forward, her heart missing a beat as a knot formed inside her stomach. “Who is doing this?”

“Listen, you kids really seem interested in this. Are you sick—do you know someone who’s sick?”

“Yeah,” Kawa said. “We know a lot of people who are sick.”

Jon nodded. “I’m sorry about that.”

“No you’re not,” she said, her hand tightening over the grip of her SMG.

Koto put a hand on her arm. “Easy.”

“Who is doing this?” asked Nova.

“I have no idea,” Jon said.

Kawa tightened her grip on her gun and it shook.

Jon seemed to notice her reaction and continued speaking. “It’s some big corp called Black Horizon Industries.” He spread his arms. “Now, it could just be them, or there could be a parent corp involved. Their intentions might be to just slough off their waste without going through the proper environmental channels, or it could be intentional—“

“Why?” asked Kawa. “Why would anyone want to do such an evil thing?! Why does the world have to be so messed up and filled with evil at the top where they funnel down all their shit on top of us like rain?”

“Kawa,” Mairu said. “Calm down. Let him explain so we can understand better.”

Kawa sniffed and wiped her face. Then she turned around so no one could see her face. Mairu then patted her back and they took several steps away while she muttered soothing words to the taller girl.

Jon looked at them apologetically.

“Why do you think they’re trying to poison people outside of the green zone?” asked Nova. “They wouldn’t do that without a reason, right?”

“They might have designs for the land out here,” said Jon. “Anyway, I think it’s some kind of conspiracy, because the guy me and my partner put away, he had all kinds of plans to target a place and send it sky high. I didn’t have a lot of time to dig into it, but from my initial findings—and his ranting’s—Sosai thought they were poisoning the water. Said something about a daughter on his way into the back of our armored vehicles.

Actually, thought Jon, he had been in a froth, his eyes blading and his look wild with hate. He had been crazy rambling and snarling.

“What about that?” asked Koto, and he nodded to Jon’s arm bad.

“Oh,” Jon said and sighed as he lifted his wrist. “Well let me tell you about that.”

*

Despite the many factory buildings and warehouses, there were ample hills in the area—rocky as the place was. There were a few half-dead palm trees swaying in the wind and the air was thick and cloying, a diaspora of corporate greed and complete disregard for air safety.

What else was new?

Jon surveyed the factory building. More specifically the cement quay stretching out into the water. There were several ships and a lot of workers. Among them armed men in black garb patrolled the area.

Lowering his monocular—he always kept one one hand clipped to his belt next to his pistol—he glanced further toward the front of the factory where the large neon sign read: ISHIMURA INDUSTRIES. It was all in black letters upon a brightly lit backdrop of white and below the name was a wisp of a comet’s tail underlining them all.

Flicking open his finger display, he said the words aloud, “Ishimura Industries” and a holo net page detailing the company’s business came up. There was a lot of information. The corp had tens of thousands of employees and specialized in space flight fuel and other vehicular fluids that Jon didn’t even know existed.

So what they were dumping…

It was some kind of waste product. He lifted his monocular to his eyes and watched the men load barrels into the back of a boat. Then he swung his view to the top of the factory where some loading shuttles were parked. It stood to reason that those toxic waste barrels could easily be loaded into those shuttles and dumped in some dry ravine out in the mountains somewhere.

So why use the water?

It had to be intentional, right? But that they did it in plain sight, Jon was surprised. The arrogance of the corps and of the corruption sometimes amazed him. But should this ever come to question, the Ishumura Execs would probably be called in for questioning before a board of inquiries, and of course, like corpo execs always did, they would stonewall and maybe get a slap on the wrist while promising to do better, but then would continue going on with whatever law breaking they were involved with.

Jon sighed heavily.

Maybe Sosai was right.

He called his partner and she picked up after three blips. “Jon…”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m over here at the Ishimura Industries complex still.”

She made an exasperated noise. “Jon,” she said. “Listen, I just made some calls, and the captain told me to leave off of this one.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t know if the word came down from the commissioner or what, but this isn’t our case and you need to quit poking your nose around where it doesn’t belong.”

“But Kenn, I’m watching right now as these guys load up a bunch more of this topic waste onto a boat.” The crane whined and servos hissed as they worked on the qay. “What’s really strange is that I can see them pumping the stuff out into the water right there, but they’re also transporting barrels of the stuff up the river.”

“Jon, you need to listen to me,” she said, her tone indicative of a sharp frustration. “You’re messing with fire here and you need to back off.”

“I’m going to follow that boat…”

“Your head could roll for this.”

“I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Jon--!”

He disconnected the call and continued watching. The men loaded one more barrel atop their black boat and a few of the works stepped onto the boat as well as some of their security guys.

They were about to leave.

Just then his holo device pinged. He looked at it and the name displayed said U. Kenn. He flicked the display closed. “Sorry, Ushi,” he muttered. “I’m onto something here and I’m going to find out what it is.”

*

Slightly apart from the groom Kawa was listening in again as her weapon hung at her side. She held herself with her arms like she was cold, and it was getting cold. She wanted to head back to base.

Then Mairu slipped her hand under her arm and looked at her.

“And that’s it?” Nova asked. “But what about those bots? Why did they shoot at you, and why did your wristband go red?”

“No idea,” he said, shaking his head. “I got like twenty-five calls from my partner while I was flying down the road to catch up with that boat—this little guy went red—and those bots in the shopping mall opened up on me. Made me crash my bike, too.” He flicked open his holo device, but it wouldn’t turn on. He shook his hand and made a frustrated noise. “It’s dead.”

“Turned off,” said Nova. “You’ve been shut out.”

“I guess so.”

“You can say goodbye to your whole life now. They’re confiscating your accounts as we speak.”

“Good,” he laughed. “They can have them. It’s nothing but debt anyway.”

Nova shook her head, thinking that it was better to live out here like this than to live that life of digital slavery inside the pens they called greenzones on this world. Except the water…

It was starting to become a huge problem.

“They almost killed you,” said Koto. “Clearly you were onto something.”

“That’s my thinking.”

“Guys,” Mairu said as she came forward. They looked at her and she glanced about. Then she hitched up her sniper rifle in her arms. “It’s getting pretty dark.”

“You’re right,” Nova said. “We should head back.”

“Mm,” Koto noised with a nod.

“So,” Jon said with a smile and scratched his temple. It was then that Koto realized for the first time the skid marks on his leather jacket from his crash. “We’re going to your base, huh?’

“No,” Koto said.

The kids shared looks as Jon watched. He was starting to get worried that they might off him here on this dusty desert road.

“We’re taking you to get your bracelet off.”

“Oh yeah,” he breathed. “They can track us through these things.”

“That’s right,” said Nova. “If we don’t move fast, the hells are going to rain down on us.”

“They already tried to kill me once. Maybe they think I’m dead and my body’s being carried off by scavengers.”

“We can hope,” said Koto. Then he turned to Mairu. “Go ahead and go back with Kawa.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.”

They split up and Jon followed the the boy and the girl. “Hey, I told you my name. Do you two care to introduce yourselves.”

“I’m Nova,” she said. “And that’s Koto.”

“Thanks for saving me back there.”

“You’re lucky,” said Nova. “We almost shot you.”

He chuckled. “Really?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she lied, and then she looked at Koto askance with a subtle smirk she couldn’t hide.

He couldn’t hide his either.

“So where are you taking me, exactly?”

“To a friend,” Koto said. “She can get that band off your wrist.”

“Lead away,” said Jon, and together they trudged over the rocky ground, broke off of the road and went into the hills.